The thesis of Archbishop Peter Carnley’s book Reflections in the Glass relies heavily on a caricature of his opponents, “Sydney Anglicans”, and a highly selective & indeed, puzzling - reading of the Anglican tradition. Although he faintly protests about labelling (p.25), it is really a matter of labelling that is Carnley’s concern: he wants to re-badge himself as “progressive orthodox”, eschewing the outdated term “liberal”; and he wants to apply the label “fundamentalist” to evangelical Anglicans. By using the term “orthodox”, Carnley stakes his claim for the middle ground of the Anglican tradition; by the word “progressive” he means to indicate an openness to question the received wisdom of that tradition, especially in the realms of ethics and church order (though not progressive enough to countenance lay presidency, interestingly!). Conversely, by applying terms like “fundamentalist” to his fellow Anglicans he means to deny them their right to the Anglican heritage. Although he says “we can live comfortably with diversity” (p.50), it is clear that he cannot live comfortably with this writer’s diversity!
The opening chapter of the book most helpfully and elegantly outlines Carnley’s theological position and the ground for the critique of evangelicalism that follows. I am thankful to the Archbishop for the opportunity to understand him better: too often differences have surfaced without the chance to engage at the level of first principles. And it is here that some real differences lie.
In the first chapter, “God: Manifestation or Mystery?”, he sets up a contrast between the view that God is made known in an intelligible way (“manifestation”) and the view that he remains a mystery. He begins with the stereotype of Anglicans as lacking any firm convictions, one that has given rise to much humour over the years (think The Vicar of Dibley) but that, according to Carnley, contains more than a grain of truth. Anglicans are, he says, characteristically reticent to make theological truth claims. Outside the creeds, all sorts of personal beliefs may be admitted, but Anglicans refrain with humility from saying more than this about God. Speak of him we must & but with the greatest of care. This is why he does not like the term “liberal”: because it implies a positive dependence on human reason, which Carnley sees as limited and flawed.
In fact, this reticence is grounded on a primary, and utterly orthodox, theological truth: the sheer transcendence of God. This is the “index of Christian orthodoxy” (p.31). God is not to be reduced to our statements about him nor contained by our thoughts. He is “an infinite mystery, an ineffable, transcendent reality” (p.27). This dogma is “essential to the understanding of the ethos of Anglicanism”(p.27); and it is particularly so for the “progressive” “orthodoxy” being road-tested here. This single truth, says Carnley, has massive implications for our speech about God. When human beings talk of God they necessarily use metaphor & rock, wind, fire, shepherd, father. “We project these images onto a heavenly screen” (p.28), he says.
In a slightly confusing way, he then introduces the tradition of apophatic theology. Such negative theology & speaking of God by saying what he is not - for Carnley, is really the only possible result of proper engagement with the transcendent mystery of God. With the Eastern Orthodox churches (frequently given praiseworthy mention by Carnley) Anglicans share this essential tradition. God is essentially “a hidden God” (p.29) & unknowable and incomprehensible, more to be apprehended than comprehended:
At the end of the day, we must confess that ‘God as God is in God’s self’ is an unsearchable mystery. (p.29)
Even the incarnation, in his view, does not enlighten us: we are given in the person and work of Jesus more mystery (p.30).
In addition, human reason itself must be seen as limited, halting and incomplete. We should be reminded by this of our intellectual poverty as human beings. The implication that flows is that our theological language - in fact all human language - is always to be limited. Worship of God should precede speaking of God. In the end, our knowledge of God can only ever be blurred and fragmentary. Although Carnley allows that there ought to be positive doctrinal statements about God, such as are contained in the great creeds of the church, it is not at all clear from his reasoning how these statements might be possible. He admits it rather than affirms it.
Part of the problem I have with this book is that Carnley imagines that evangelicals do not agree with him when in fact they do. Much of this chapter is not really in dispute: the sheer transcendence of God is a thoroughly biblical and orthodox teaching, as Carnley demonstrates (cf Rom 11:33). I would concur & of course! - that our theological discourse must take second place to our prayerful devotion to God; and amidst an attitude of the utmost humility. I would agree that we apprehend more than comprehend God; that our feeble human knowledge could never contain him. I found Carnley’s description of the nature of God thoughtful and stimulating.
I would challenge, however Carnley’s theological reasoning from this basic truth. Scripture speaks of an invisible God (John 1:18) and a hidden God (Is 45:15), but does not present an unknowable God. In fact:
No-one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. (John 1:18)
The Incarnation of the Word of God gives God himself to us. God makes himself known to us & not in a way that is exhaustive, but in a way that is true and intelligible. The Nicene theologians & who could be more orthodox than they? - would not have agreed with this Carnlean scepticism, primarily because the revelation of God in Christ as Father gives us a real knowledge of God as God is in himself. Here is what renowned Scottish theologian T.F. Torrance writes:
[Athanasius and Hilary] differentiated themselves here sharply from the thesis of Basileides, the Gnostic of Alexandria, who taught, with reference to Plato’s statement that God is beyond all being, that we cannot say anything about what God is, but can only say something about what he is not. It was pointed out by Gregory Nazianzen, however, that if we cannot say anything positive about what God is, we really cannot say anything accurate about what he is not. (The Trinitarian Faith, p.50)
The Nicene theologians added that the incarnation gives us a point of access to God that is both “in God himself and in our creaturely existence” (TTF, p.52). In Christ, God gives us true knowledge of himself. Basil of Caesarea (one of Carnley’s heroes) recognised that though God is ineffable, this does not mean he is unintelligible:
We confess that we know what is knowable of God and yet that what we know reaches beyond our comprehension. (Epistles 235.2, quoted in Torrance, TTF, p.214).
We see here that despite the fact that we cannot contain God by our reason, we most certainly do have knowledge of him. Basil explained that this was by means of the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of knowledge”, who bestowed on true worshippers true knowledge of God. (On the Holy Spirit 47, quoted in Torrance, TTF, p.214). In the language of Ephesians 2:18, through Jesus Christ we are given access to the Father in one Spirit.
That is not to say that this knowledge of God is total, or totally comprehensible. However, it is to allow a great deal more than Carnley will. Even though Athanasius and Hilary would be as cautious as he in making statements about God, they felt it necessary to speak in keeping with what they saw as the truth. They
were reflecting what had been done at the Council of Nicea when the fathers sought to give accurate and exact expression to the heart and substance of the evangelical message as conveyed through the Holy Scriptures, and thus brought to light the underlying pattern of the truth of the Gospel in the light of which the Scriptures themselves become more intelligible to us. (TTF p.58)
It was the Arians who taught that God was still utterly unknown, even after Christ. What we read in the NT is a confidence that believers with the aid of the Spirit will know God, and know cognitively about God & that there has been a remarkable but in its way comprehensible revelation of God in the Word and in the words of the gospel. This is what the Nicene theologians so strongly asserted against the Gnostic and Arian heretics. But the same could not be said of Carnley’s theology.
Human speech about God must recognise its limitations, naturally. God is not “a rock”; he does not have arms or a face. But are all the words in scripture in the same category? Does Christ’s speech fit into the category of human speech about God? When he calls his father “Father”, is this merely a human groping after the divine? I assume the Archbishop would say “yes”, based on what he has written. The Nicene Fathers & and orthodox theologians before them and after them - saw in the Scriptures a given language about God, that enables us & with appropriate hesitancy and reserve & to speak positively about and to, the Almighty. Otherwise, we pray to the void.
However, if we follow Carnley, the revelation we have of God is no revelation at all. God is not with us, does not give himself to us, but comes so cloaked that we must doubt whether we have seen his glory at all. What is disturbing here is that in the name of humility he presumes to look behind the revelation of God in Christ and scripture and say that God is actually not as he is revealed to us. Revelation is really deception! In revelation God gives us nothing of his true self, but only a masquerade. While Carnley does claim that he holds to positive statements about God, it is unclear to me, especially given his hermeneutic (1) as he explains it in chapter three, how he can assert anything at all. In so strongly asserting the unsearchable transcendence of God without properly balancing this with the immanence of God in the incarnation of the Son, Carnley is left with nowhere to go when he wants to assert truths about the divine.
What we have in Reflections in the Glass, rather than anything truly orthodox and ancient, is really a religious epistemology which has its roots in the thought of Immanuel Kant. Nineteenth century theologians Newman and Mansel, on whom the Archbishop is heavily reliant, were influenced by the deep agnosticism of Kant about knowing ultimate reality. Kant claims that “God” is essentially unknowable. There is however a philosophical query, that must be raised with Carnley as it is with Kant: to claim that we cannot know the unknowable appears to presuppose some sort of positive knowledge of the “unknowable”. If this were not so, how could the line between what is “unknowable” and what is “knowable” be drawn? Yet draw it Carnley does. I would concur with Carnley if knowing God were only a matter of human efforts from within the phenomenal world to reach out for the transcendent. If, however, there has been an entry into our world from the side of the divine, by a sheer act of grace, a great act of God which is also a meaningful declaration of his sheer love, then we are not guilty of presumption to say that we know God and of God. Christian theology, rightly construed, is merely echoing God’s statements about himself.
I would also take issue with Carnley’s reading of Anglican history, which by any account must be seen as idiosyncratic. Carnley introduces, from a character in one of Hume’s dialogues, the idea of a “Demea” “tradition” within Anglican Christianity. By the Demea label he means to demonstrate the orthodoxy of the kind of fideism he is proposing. As he puts it, “we should be able to fill out the chief characteristics of Anglican Demea theology by referring to a selection of actual theologians from the historical tradition” (p. 34). This is more difficult than it should be. What we get is a rather obscure (and tedious) journey from William King, Archbishop of Dublin in the early 18th century, via Richard Whately and Edward Copleston to that patron saint of Anglo-Catholicism, John Henry Newman; and his friend H.L. Mansel. In the history of Anglican Christianity, this is a highly selective, partly obscure and historically brief thread to pull. Its greatest figure, Newman, famously converted to Catholicism, and found there his natural home. If he can be used as a model of Anglican orthodoxy, then why not, say, John Wesley? This is scarcely a first XI of Anglicanism. The only mention of the Reformation period is a quote from the Dutch humanist Erasmus & who, though he worked in England for a period, can hardly be called an “Anglican” figure, representative of the English Reformation.
At this point, while he asserts the strong commitment to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds (strangely neglecting the fiery Athanasian!) he goes on to say
The Churches of the Anglican Communion are reluctant about adding to those ancient Creeds further dogmatic definitions and deeming them to ‘generally necessary for salvation’. (p.26)
This is part of Carnley’s general characterisation of Anglican faith as (historically) reluctant to engage in theological assertion. However, with colossal oversight, this neglects the 39 Articles of Religion, forged over years of determined theological debate within the Church of England. What he says about them, in chapter two, is this:
the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion to which we give assent as a key document of our Anglican history were intended at the time of the Elizabethan Settlement not so much to exclude alternative confessional viewpoints as to include as wide a range of beliefs as possible. (p.74)
This is simply not true. Indeed, the explicit criticisms of Roman Catholicism in the Articles are designed to exclude a Catholic interpretation of Anglican teaching, especially on matters of justification, authority and ecclesiastical polity.
There is slipperiness about the use of “tradition” here, too. One minute it feels as if he is arguing that “progressive” “orthodoxy”, as an inheritor of the “Demea” “tradition”, should be allowed its place alongside other interpretations of the Anglican tradition: the next, he seems to be arguing that others have no place. By the end of chapter one, Carnley’s position has become the “characteristic Anglican” one. The contempt with which he treats the long-established evangelical tradition & he can barely acknowledge one positive thing it may have contributed to the Anglican church & gives the lie.
“Progressive” “orthodoxy” owes more to Kant and Newman and the nineteenth century - with a dash of postmodern literary scepticism - than it does to anything that precedes it. It is certainly not representative of the mainstream of the orthodox Christian tradition; and rests on a puzzling and selective reading of Anglicanism. The Archbishop’s scepticism about the possibility of human words conveying the truth about God, even when such speech is the gift of revelation, is most puzzling of all, given that the word “gospel” itself implies a & yes! verbal - declaration of news from and about God to the world.
Endnotes
(1) In this chapter he uncritically accepts the dogmas of postmodern literary theory & seemingly oblivious to the powerful challenges to this form of criticism from eminent critics like Harold Bloom and George Steiner.
Michael P Jensen
Moore College, 2004
